The Right to Die

It has become a profoundly perplexing question for doctors and, indeed, all of society: Should heroic measures--respirators and other marvels of modern medical technology--be used to prolong the lives of the dying who no longer want to live? Last week California gave its answer. It became the first state to legalize the right of the terminally ill to decree their own deaths.

Signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, an ex-Jesuit seminarian, after weeks of personal agonizing, the California bill implicitly recognizes the validity of "living wills." Long a subject of debate, these are documents in which a patient directs doctors to "pull the plug," in effect, if life-sustaining procedures serve no other purpose than to postpone the moment of death. Under the California legislation, such directives can now be drafted by any adult, must be witnessed by two people who are neither related to the patient nor involved in his medical treatment, and must be renewed every five years. Then, beginning Jan. 1 in California, if a doctor and a colleague determine that the patient is hopelessly ill, life-sustaining machinery can be shut off without any legal repercussions for the physicians or the patient's family.

Passed by a 43-to-25 vote in the California assembly after a bitter fight, the bill gained significant support in the wake of the case of Karen Anne Quinlan, the New Jersey girl who slipped into an apparently irreversible coma. Karen's parents spent six months battling for her right to die with dignity.* Though the California bill specifically disavows "mercy killing" and allows anyone designated by the patient to rescind the death directive, California's pro-life forces strenuously opposed the measure as the first step toward euthanasia. Said one Democratic assemblyman, Vincent Thomas: "The trend seems to be to get rid of the senile, insane and crippled people. Our next move will be to get rid of everyone."

Ultimate Underdog. Supporters of the bill included the California Medical Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and senior citizens' groups. The bill's sponsor, Democrat Barry Keene, who saw two close friends die slowly and painfully of cancer, says it speaks for the ultimate underdog--those terminally ill "who have no hope, are helpless and for psychological reasons have been isolated." He is urging other states to follow California's example. In fact, there have already been attempts to pass similar bills in 17 other states.

* The New Jersey Supreme Court approved the removal of the mechanical respirator from Karen last March. Contrary to prognosis, she remains alive in a rest home, though still in a coma.

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